Tim Banks is the CEO of APM, a Canada wide construction and property development company, with its head office in Charlottetown, PEI. My family has lived on PEI for over eight generations and I was born at the Prince County Hospital in Summerside, PEI. I am hoping someone will soon develop a blood test to authenticate when you actually become an "Islander" as I am still having problems explaining where I'm from?

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Please tell me that when you find out that they actually only sold about 2,500 tickets surely the Province will ask for 75% of our taxpayers money back. What kind of experience did these promoters have and who are they that the Government would just hand over $100,000.00 to them with no performance criteria on the numbers?Here's a few comments from CBC viewers,"Just out of curiosity, wouldn’t you know right away exactly how many tickets were sold....how were they sold if they can't seem to come up with the exact count? Something is not right, if you invested $100,000 dollars in a Business venture with an Organization you must have had a lot of faith in them??"

"The question which really should be asked is how many tickets were sold, not how many attended. Many of those in attendance were there on complimentary tickets passed out either by the organizers or one suspects by government officials looking to ensure a larger crowd."

P.E.I. undecided on Alanis investmentThursday, September 18, 2008CBC NewsThe P.E.I. government is waiting to see the final results from the Summerset Festival in Alexandra to decide if it was a good deal for taxpayers. The province invested $100,000 in the concert, which featured Alanis Morissette. Organizers first said they expected to sell about 10,000 tickets, but say in the end only about 5,000 attended. Deputy minister of tourism Melissa MacEachern said the province is waiting for a final accounting from festival organizers."Our position has been going into it, and the rationale around supporting an event like a fall music festival, was to shore up the fall season," said MacEachern. "We begin the season, for instance, with the Festival of Lights, which has over the years become quite successful. We're looking for something in the fall season that will become eventually successful. So it will be both a qualitative and quantitative analysis. "MacEachern said the government is still waiting for concert organizers to tell them exactly how many tickets were sold, and how many of those were to people from off-Island.